Google’s New Augmented Reality Game is Taking Over Canada

Google’s new augmented reality game, Ingress, is quickly becoming one of the best of its genre—and it’s still only in beta.

The game, developed by Google’s Niantic Labs, is an alternate reality game, where two factions are pitted against each other for control of your city’s portals. When you begin, you choose which faction you wish to belong to, either the agents of a mind-controlling power (the enlightened) or those wishing to resist this force (the resistance).

The game, available only on Android at the moment, uses Google’s database of monuments and landmarks, attaching “portals” to them for players to fight for control over. Similar to Google’s Field Trip, players must use use the GPS on their smartphones to physically reach locations. Once there they can attack, control, and protect their portals, in an effort to spread the particular dogma of their factions.

The game is in closed beta right now, requiring an invite just to play it, which makes it even more incredible just how many people in Canada are indeed playing it. While Calgary belongs mostly to the enlightened, Halifax is under resistance control; and so it goes for almost every city in Canada.

The game is unique amongst AR games. Only Google could make such a massively multiplayer game almost overnight. If you are interested, you an request an invite at ingress.com.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
As a first step to fulfilling that mission, Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a new approach to online search that took root in a Stanford University dorm room and quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's...
more

Stephen Christensen

Stephen is the Atlantic Canadian contributor for Techvibes.com; reporting Canadian technology news, with a focus on the Maritime provinces. Having a deep-rooted interest in science and technology for much of his life, he is most interested in mobile technology and social media. Having been published in various scientific journals, he is completing his Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University...
more